Viewpoints
on Strategic Alliances

This Strategic
Alliances Viewpoint, the third in a series, focuses on the tools and techniques
that contribute to a successful institutionalized alliance capability.
The discussion is based on the findings of a 1997 BA&H survey
of 40 major companies and covers:

· The rationale for institutionalizing
· Pitfalls to avoid
· Building blocks to successful institutionalization
· Implications for management: building centers for alliance
excellence

BA&H's 1997 survey revealed a wide gap in ROI between experienced
and less-experienced alliance companies: successful multi-alliance
companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, IBM, BellSouth, and Ford often
earn five times the ROI of less-experienced companies. The key to achieving
repeatable alliance success is to capture and disseminate learning about
alliances through an institutionalized capability. BA&H has
developed a best practice approach, which provides the necessary rigor
and discipline to develop an institutional alliance capability.

First,
companies must avoid the following traps or "roads to nowhere":

Avoiding
the "roads to nowhere" is not enough to ensure success:
critical building blocks must be in place. In companies that have developed
an institutionalized approach, procedures are normalized, there
is a dedicated staff with a high degree of sharing, and a repository of
knowledge is maintained for future use. There are many variations to how
companies have sought to build an institutional alliance capability: however,
regardless of the process, the following building blocks must be in place: